Steepster's Ultimate Fan Fic Thread!

Shadowfall- I don’t have much for Mystrade unfortunately… I did enjoy the first story in this series: http://archiveofourown.org/works/446107 The rest of the series is still enjoyable, but they just published the 10th part in December. IDK how long they will go with it.

C’est la vie. XD
I’d be interested in an ebook version too, if y’all’re talking about Tricks. I currently just have each part ‘entire work’ saved to my Adobe reader then each part has a number infront of the title for the proper order…..folders help too. Lol….It sounds excessively complicated when I explain it though. Lol.

Yes! I WILL because I don’t want 10+ ebooks floating around. :P And I figured out that if I keep the epub file, I can always upload it to GrabMyBooks and edit it later. Maybe I can get to it tonight in the middle of our House of Cards marathon.

That’s where I’m saving the fanfic series I’ve compiled, in both mobi and epub formatting! If you guys don’t like how it’s bundled, for whatever reason, just load up the epub up to GrabMyBooks.com and you can edit each story or change the cover out! It’s easy. :)

I’ve just finished the Fire & Ice (Mystrade) series, but I’ll do the Frost Giant one next. Gimme 20 minutes for that one (still getting distracted by House of Cards).

i haven’t really read that many Hobbit fics to be honest. so i’m not exactly confident that these are the very best or anything, but i still remember them fondly. so at least they made an impression on me. :)

to all of us that read fanfiction, it’s obvious that there are almost as many different tastes & preferences in fics as there are people in fandom. personally, i can say that i sometimes can’t stand some of the stories that are the very most loved in a fandom. or that there are certain characterizations or dynamics that i can barely stand, but other readers tend to love them with a passion. SO…

i have a friend who is a social worker & works for a great non-profit. she does a LOT of hard work and long hours for children and teens in the community and generally cares intensely for the people she interacts with, but also, quite frankly, she sees a lot of shit. (basically she’s a pretty sensitive lady.)

she just watched all episodes of Sherlock. all of it! in maybe 2 weeks time. she seriously loved it.
yes i have sent her all the crazy gifs i have.

see, i was an art school goth in my youth. i have a preference for things dark and moody and uncomfortable sometimes. and since all the lovey fics that pop into my mind involve riding crops, i need your help.

she’s a sweet and super intelligent softy of a lady, and i want to find some really good Sherlock ‘First Kiss’ fics for her to read.

What Are Your Very Favorites?!
What was the very first Sherlock fic that you read?!
Did a friend recommend your first to you or did you just pick one that looked good and get lucky?

she has never read fanfic before. help me convert her to our glorious universe!
(if we are successful, she will curse my name for years to come. :) while simultaneously giggling wildly at the beauty of fandom.)

I think I’ve already given you all my Sherlock recs,
but the #1 rec I would give would be “The Progress of Sherlock Holmes”. (http://archiveofourown.org/works/173274?view_full_work=true). I was still pretty new to fanfic when I’d read that, as well as slash, and it just blew my mind It was so incredible!

I know you’ve read some of these but I’m posting the links in case anyone else wants to peek.

I should have more, but I guess I haven’t tagged things well enough. Hope you find something? Also this should tell me that I should stop staring at Cas/Dean and go back to reading about John/Sherlock.

I am just re-reading To Sleep, Perchance to Smother Your Flatmate with a Pillow (as posted above and linked in dropbox as Two Coffees, One Sugar One Black), and it is quite sweet and not too alarming to someone who is new to fic. I’m already on the second part where John is starting to wonder if he may have accidentally started a relationship with Sherlock.

It’s utterly distracting. I’m at work and I need to put my kindle away but I just don’t want to…

Ahhh okay yes i haven’t read the Two Coffees one i don’t think! not yet at least.
but it sounds promising.
and John being all ‘not gay’ is only for the beginning of the series i’m guessing? hah
…was i gonna get work done today?
naw i mean YESbut … let me just find this fic on my kindle first and just, ya know, mark it for laterlater

GUISE!! ALL OF YOU!THANKYOU SO MUCH for these great recommendations and positive votes of stories and authors!
(and also for the bundled books Cavo! i grabbed them ALL last night. you are totally spreading the love. and when i send her these i will totally tell her where they came from.)

and as a bonus, hopefully everyone who hangs out here will find a new story to love too!

FYI to let you know how things turned out, i gave my friend 3 fics and she is hooked. HOOKED!
and she has another friend who is not tech savy and who i now also send Sherlock fics to. the thing is, the second gal is ALSO an avengers fan.

basically i have them both set up in my calibre addresses and send fics directly to their kindles.
i’m the fic fairy. and who doesn’t want a fic fairy?!?

for the fun of it i’ll list the stuff i’ve sent them so far…

The original Sherlock story by Arthur Conan Doyle
A Study in Scarlet

Avengers fics
many names in history, none of them are ours
Words May Fail (The Body Remains)
When Your First Four Dates Are in a Convenience Store, It Might …
Talk to Me
Private Bookmark?
Arms And The Man

Sherlock fics
Undercurrents
All That Glitters
The Cold Song
The Infiltrate Series
Show Me How to Stop Running
The Road Trip Series
Seeds
The Progress of Sherlock Holmes

Speaking of fanfic etc, I’ve created a tumblr blog that’s full of supernatural and sherlock and other fandoms as they catch my eye. It’s under a different name that I don’t want tied to cavocorax so just send me a PM and I will tell you what it is if anyone is interested! (I just don’t want someone to google my name and find that next to it! Online pseuds are complicated).

I am not a fandom girl at all but I love Supernatural. The characters are easy to love despite their many flaws and the wndless references to the X-Files and other pop culture make it pretty funny pretty often. I am rewatching it now for the third or fourth time. It gets very sifferent over time, especially after season five with the end of the original story arc but I love it in all its incarnations.

And I am totally excited to see where the show will go from there because I really have no idea. I hear they just renewed the 10th season. I’m sorta astounded that there are 5 seasons AFTER the main arc. I guess if the fans keep demanding more, they will keep giving it to us, but it makes me feel like they are just doing what we do when we write fanfic – ok, lets give you more and more of your favourite chars…. :P

For the most part I have been able to avoid spoilers, so I’m having fun live-blogging when I watch SPN to track what my thoughts were of everything, especially the big moments. :)

Uniquity you are so right. easy to love despite their MANY flaws hahah. arg you boys!
back in the day, my sis started watching at season 3 and sometimes we still kinda encourage ppl to start there? and if they love it then they can always go back. i mean, a show doesn’t get to 9 seasons for no reason! but as is the case with most tv, sometimes the first season or two might start out a little lopsided, until all the parts of the production finds their legs.

we will ALWAYS want to watch the ‘A Very Supernatural Christmas’ episode 3.08 EVERYFREAKIN christmas. !!!
i mean it has flashback scenes to the boys as young kids during the holidays, while at the same time they were trying to make “the most violent Christmas special in the history of television”!! how can we NOT watch it!

My first episode was the fairy tale one in season two or three and it totally hooked me. I think it is great to start with a monster of the week without a focus on the story arc. That way you can get a sense of the boys without worrying about something silly like yellow eyes.

In some ways I actually prefer the seasons AFTER the main arc the most as I think the freedom really let then have fun with it but sometimes they write themselves into a corner. I have mad love for Bobby, Castiel, the Impala and, of course, the boys.

I have a question for the fanfic people here – why do some people write fics/ have fantasy worlds where the brothers are romantially involved? It is TOO weird for me. The Dean and Cas thing is understandable but as beautiful as Jared and Jensen are, that characters are brothers!! Ach. Sorry.

EDIT: I’m not trying to say that the bromance romance is common in fandom as I don’t delve into it enough to be sure but I have definitely seen it in fan sites. Tumblr scares me a little, hah. My younger sister-in-law became a Supernatural fangirl a few months back and is WAY in the fandom. She doesn’t understand my reticence. I like too many popular shows to let myself get into the fandom – Doctor Who, Sherlock, Supernatural, etc. I need time to do other things too! :)

Hmmm… I wonder if part of the interest is the inherent wrongness of it? Like they shouldn’t because they’re brothers, but at the end of the day they’re the only ones keeping each other together/sane/alive? (if you ignore Cas and other possible good influences…) And sometimes love is love and you shouldn’t label it? IDK. There can be something appealing about forbidden/taboo love, but I’ve never read any Wincest fic.

I have to admit I was curious why so many people ship it as well. I’ll probably eventually read it to see if it’d be something interesting (and probably hella angsty/remorseful…) in the hands of a good author, but if it was really poorly written I wouldn’t want to touch it. I try to stay open-minded, but I’ve already found a few areas that I just won’t touch. :P (ohai, mpreg)

And I think SPN is the only place I came across actual bromance fic, but that’s because I’ve mostly just read John/Sherlock. (As in I have 140 johnlock fics on my kindle, while other fandoms are at ~30).

And yes. TUMBLR is something to be afraid of! I’ve decide to put NSFW posts on my blog from the start so that IF people follow me, they won’t be offended later on. THEYWILL BE WARNED. (Does tumblr unlock everyone else’s 14 yr old?)

As far as ‘brothers’, I only ever watched the pilot. So while I know they’re brothers, I’m not emotionally invested in that. But AU’s FTW. Also RPF, which I felt weird about until I got involved in Bandom a few years ago. Heh.

Here’s Cas/Dean where the entire universe is pushing to get them together. Will their stubbornness/hesitation/whatever be enough to resist? – http://archiveofourown.org/series/30616
(spoilers: NO)

“That time the universe decided Dean belonged with Cas and wasn’t afraid to pull out the big guns to make it so. Big guns in this case being obsessive fangirls, archangels turned tricksters and overly enthusiastic cupids. Welcome to Dean’s life.”
-The series is incomplete, but the first story is massive and complete. I read it as a stand-alone before I realized there were ficlets after! You can dl the bundle here: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/oj8ouro70m2h05m/h3C5wzH9Kq

299 fic added to kindle? Story of my life! haha just when i think i’m getting to a manageable level, i’m inexplicably on ao3 searching for new AUs or stories by fave authors i may have missed.
my sis and i are like “i have 60 pages on my kindle” (which means 600ish fics & articles), or “i’m down to 45 pages!” or more often “shit i’m back up to 71 pages” hahah
it’s our short hand for saying yay boo yay i’m drowning in fic!

I read a lot just sitting at my computer, or on my phone as I fall asleep. My ereader doesn’t have a lit screen (and the lit case is TERRIBLE) so I have to have a light on for it. So I read on my computer or my phone, save to dropbox, then once the pile is becoming unmanageable I transfer to Calibre and (possibly) onto my ereader.

I didn’t post this in the Hobbit-fic thread, because it’s more general LotR-verse. It’s easily my favorite LotR-verse fic ever (and possibly my favorite overall) and it took me forever to find again after the fics on the Barrow Downs seemed to poof (though now I’m hyped to read it again!).

It’s a sequel to The Lord of the Rings, taking place in the early Fourth Age, and written in the style of The Hobbit. Basically it’s another larger than life adventures for some Hobbits. So, so, so good.

So Cavo and i started a talk on a tea review and i should move it over here for all to reference (if it’s your type of thing)

it started because there is a MCU Harlequin Challenge that showed up on AO3http://archiveofourown.org/collections/mcuharlequin
but it’s not extensive. so i recommend you search the tags like: Alternate Universe – Regency, Regency Romance, Regency, Marriage of Convenience, Alternate Universe – Jane Austen Fusion, and Harlequin. to start. and then look for your fandom.

there are a few clint/phil that have a lot of kudos. (saved for vacation reading!)
i plan to look for sherlock ones soon too.

Harlequin does not mean period pieces necessarily. they are bodice rippers. (we’re all still just waiting for a good pirates-on-the-sea AU aren’t we?) i read a love triangle one earlier today where a wedding was called off. and i’m reading an arranged marriage one right now that is bucky/steve and takes place in the modern day.

and to explain, i don’t always go so fluffy with my selections, but i do love the Austen movies, and like Anne of Green Gables and similar. and after reading a story like this http://archiveofourown.org/works/562971 where clint just has horrible things done to him for the first 20k words, i sometimes need a bit of happy-ending-quick-read-romance. drama that’s only heightened by the fact that it takes days to get to the next town over, that you might catch your death when you walk to your neighbor’s house, and that no one is ever permitted to say anything emotional out loud ever. ahaha

office flirting AU
Clint is a window washer, and Coulson is the business executive who falls in love with him after watching him wash the windows of his 117th story office.http://archiveofourown.org/works/503971
(aka the fic that i read and was immediately like ‘that was great!’ …and then… ‘why do i like it so much idek?’)

Find Duplicates plugin
i sometimes lose track of what fic i’ve already downloaded so this one comes in handy.

also
i’ve read there is a DRM removal plugin that can remove DRM from most books but haven’t tried it.

…
but listen, i wanna confess that i’ve also been using evernote. not that you should too! no.
calibre is great and works well and i still use it 100% it’s the only and best way to get stuff onto my kindle. period. but i have been saving every fic i read in evernote too. cuz i can search the full text of every fic. for those times when i’m like, oh the story had this and this and that in it and i wanna share it with someone or read it again. but it was a labor intensive project for a week or so. and not necessary but i had an intense compulsion to do it anyways. that’s me.
i don’t use the same tagging or labeling methods for evernote. cuz i can search the text i can do a search that includes everything, (for example)

and come up with the story i was looking for.
granted i could probably just search ‘merman’ & ‘tacos’ and find THAT fic ahahha but you get the idea.
this is really helpful for me because i have an awful memory. i’m not exaggerating i swear.

Here’s the site that has the DRM removal plug-in: http://apprenticealf.wordpress.com/
It’s actually super simple to set-up, and once it is it will automatically strip the DRM of all books you purchase when you import them into Calibre. There’s some legal questions about whether you should use it or not, but I don’t put my purchased content on torrents or anything like that so I feel fine about it. I just feel that if I paid for it I want it to be mine forever without conditions. Call me greedy. It’s ok.

oh ya! thanks!
i mean, really i just want to be able to share some books with oddree like i would any normal not e-book. and we live together. so it’s completely normal. but sometimes i don’t even buy a book because i can’t decide if i should buy it for her or me. it would be nice to be able to buy a book and just decide later :)

And, right? You should be able to share a little between friends/sisters much like you would with a physical book. I see no issue with that. Putting my entire calibre library on pirate bay though would make me feel guilty OTOH.

I like your evernote idea because you can search for phrases etc, and you don’t need to tag. I don’t think I’m ready for that step yet. But it would be cool to put the best quotes somewhere and evernote is a good place for that. I highlight the crap out of stuff in fic and then… lose it forever. #headdesk (Darcy was especially hilarious in this https://archiveofourown.org/works/584754 – although IDK if I’d go back and reread it)

Instead of not tagging like you do, I tag the hell out of everything but I use shorthand so it doesn’t take much room. I love how easy it is to rename tags too so there’s less pressure to get it right. And I like that Calibre lets me make a fanfic only library so I don’t clutter up my regular library with p:Cas/Dean, r:E, l,50k, !rec, etc.

Sheesh. You people and your fancy fic organization. XD
I just organize them by putting them in a general fandom folder, then by title. Multi story fics get their own folders within the fandom folder. Lol. Usually I just save the entire work (since most of my fics I’ve been pulling off AO3 and they have that handy feature)

Oooh- Calibre has a nice Cover Generator plugin! If I was good at arts that would be useful. But I could put screen shots in I wanted. Fan art would be best but I don’t think I should be stealing fanart to decorate my books. #itscomplicated

I am totally ready for Hannibal recs. I just read my first story today that I was comfortable with (https://archiveofourown.org/works/756863) and now I am ready to MORE as well. This probably isn’t the best, but at least it feels truer to character than some of the fic I tried before.

I love it! I was completely surprised. Happily surprised! I knew what was going to happen in the script, but no where did it say ‘Hannibal reaches out and caresses Will’s cheek’. Maybe that was a secret scene change that Bryan added in at the end. Pretty sure he ships Hannigramm.

Tangentally fandom related – did you know that David Tennant was originally picked for Hannibal’s role? :O I love the guy and his adorable owl eyes, but no. No no no.

I added a few Mads movies to my Netflix… or I should say Shmiracle’s Netflix, since I’m cancelling mine and only using it to (apparently) watch violent/intense foreign language films in the living room when the house baby’s around hahaha (ooh, Greek tragedies starring Irene Papas, anything winning the Palme d’Or, anything Shakespeare, anything Mads). Anyway, I’m with you, Cavo, about not wanting to read cannibal!Will really, or anything too OOC. The show is slashy enough without having to add to it too much (though, boy, have I said THAT before and LIED – about Dean/Cas, about Sam/Dean, about EVERYONE). Will & Hannibal can have passion for each other without being murder husbands necessarily. Just saying. Though I looked at some fic rec lists on Tumblr yesterday and added several dozen fics to my kindle to read on vacay, so it should give me a nice idea of what I am and am not willing to read in this fandom. Often, popular fics can seem OOC to me, and some rarely read ones will be AMAZING. I like amazing. I’ll let you know if I find any grand ones, since I’ll probably be telling Shmiracles anyway… with her consent or not ;)

I hope some of those work out! I’d love to hear which ones passed! (hope you guys have a relaxing holiday too)

I hear you though. I think Hannibal/Will’s relationship is pretty damn complex and I want to read fic where I’m comfortable that the author gets it. Hannibal is such a monster that I’m not sure if he can actually love someone, but I think Will intrigues him because Will is probably the ONLY person who could truly understand Hannibal. And poor Will, he’s intelligent but so fragile and easy to manipulate. It’s such an unhealthy pairing. Maybe that’s why I haven’t looked at it too much… Maybe I need more flower crowns and less murder bros. :D

Also, I love that you resisted Dean/Cas, Sam/Dean etc. I fell into Dean/Cas so hard but have now started to poke around the more forbidden pairings. :O (ohai Sam! http://archiveofourown.org/works/519567)

Oh more randoms. I just had to brag -sorry guys! You saw that last episode? We BUILT that horse? (and the girl) – but still! I’ve known about it since Jan and had to stay quiet. It’s in our shop now and some day when things slow down I will see if I can get a picture of me crawling out the belly. :D #fingerscrossed

Cavocorax – I am soooooooooooo glad that you mentioned building that horse!! The horses made me so, so, so horribly upset. (Background: I’m a former equestrian, my happiest moments in life have been with horses.. blah, blah horse girl talk) I knew, obviously, that no horses were harmed in making the episode, but still, reading that that horse was built lifts this huge irrationally sad boulder off my back!
I wish you luck in your quest to someday crawl out of its belly!! XD